Important info for non-vegan visitors

**Korn** · May 15th, 2008, 05:26 PM

Hi all,

here's some important info about our little section for people who are not vegans yet. This areas is dedicated to two groups of people:

1) People who have questions about veganism because they are seriously considering going vegan. In other words, it's not a section for questions like "I don't think it's wrong to eat eggs/honey/fish/organic meat because humans are higher beings than animals - do you agree?".

Most of us have had discussions with people who disagree in veganism in our real lives, and since we consider this forum a 'vegan sanctuary', we don't really need or want the same questions/arguments inside our little vegan community.

The Vegan Forum is basically a forum for people who already are vegans, and even this little 'bonus area' is for people who have decided that they will go vegan, and who may have questions related to this process. People can also ask why we are vegan - eg. why vegans don't eat eggs or eggs from happy chicken, etc., but we have made a firm decisions about not inviting or allowing any of the sections on this site to develop into a verbal fight between vegans and people who defend use of eggs, honey, organic cheese, people who 'compassionately' eats meat and what not.

Trust us: if you have some time and use our search engine, you'll see that our members during our 4-5 years of activity have answered pretty much every thinkable and non-thinkable question about why vegans don't use animal products!

2) This section is also for new vegans. Vegan 'newbies' often have questions that are similar to other new vegans that have started threads and asked questions before. Therefore, we thought it would be a good idea to have a separate section where people can look up on earlier questions and answers relevant to people.

We have occasional visitors who claim to be vegans but still start discussions where they clearly argue against vegan viewpoints. Somethimes they start threads which look like questions, other times they'll just start to explain how much they disagree with us.

Now - if they disagree with us, they are not vegans, so that should solve the 'problem': this is a site for vegans, so we'll deactivate their accounts if they promote using animal products - even if they say that they claim to be vegans.

Some people don't understand the difference between having a section open for sincere questions and having a section where they can argue pro using animal products - and... maybe it is a little confusing. They may not have understood that we are not inviting them to a pro/con-use-of-animal-products discussion. If we actually would have done that, anyone who wanted to defend use of organic meat, 'free range' eggs or killing 'happy, wild animals' could just register and start heated debates, where they attacked vegan viewpoints... and we don't want that. Not here - at least not now. That could have been an interesting idea for another site, but veganforum.com is not that site!

Here's a thread covering one example of a person who registered, claimed to be a vegan and then started to defend use of animal products: Dear non-vegans / non-satisfied members....

Ninetysomething percent of the world populations aren't vegans, and - dear non-vegan visitors - we simply have decided that we don't have any intentions of discussing the same things that often pop up with everybody who may be interested in a debate. Sorry if that sounds rude, but that's our forum profile.

It has been months - if not years - since somebody who registered and started to discuss vegan viewpoints introduced non-vegan/anti-vegan viewpoints we haven't heard many times before. We're actually consdering closing this section and replacing it with a "Frequently asked questions about veganism'-page. Meanwhile, just keep asking questions if a search doesn't provide you with the answers you look for, but please have a look here first:

New visitor? Before you ask questions...

Maybe we'll start forum for discussion between vegans and non-vegans some time in the future. Until this possibly happens, we're quite confident that you'll find answers to all - or at least, almost all - your questions about veganism in the already existing threads!

Best,
K

PS - please let me/us know if you have ideas regarding how we can make our questions-are-ok-but-promoting-use-of-animal-products-isn't policy easier to understand - or ways we can ensure that as many new members as possible actually understand that this is the policy we actually have. Thanks.

**Korn** · May 17th, 2008, 01:39 PM

PS - please let me/us know if you have ideas regarding how we can make our questions-are-ok-but-promoting-use-of-animal-products-isn't policy easier to understand - or ways we can ensure that as many new members as possible actually understand that this is the policy we actually have. Thanks.

We may add a new subforum in the future for discussions between non-vegans and vegans. We could set it up so it would automatically show up for unregistered users and users with 'Not Currently A Vegan'-accounts, but not show up for regular users unless they joined that User Group/forum manually.

I've been called a fascist, militant and what not for keeping our policy about only allowing vegans (read: members who are against using leather, eggs from any kinds of birds/any situations, against supporting the meat- or dairy industry by buying their products etc) intact, but with the addition of a section for non-vegans (and not only for new vegans/people with questions, which we already have), maybe I'd get less angry PMs in the future from people who may not have thought of the fact that a forum for vegans actually is a forum for people who agree in vegan viewpoints, and not for people who register and shortly after starting posting messages aruing against vegan viewpoints...

What do you think? Should we add such a subforum?

cobweb · May 17th, 2008, 02:41 PM

i think we should try it and just close it if it gets ridiculously nasty - afterall we do need to inform people who are wanting to understand vegansim, don't we?. People can just not join/subscribe/look at the section if they don't want to communicate with non-vegans.